[kbenson]

You might call it poorly implemented. The companies dealing with fraud in the EU because scammers found they could physically insert a chip form one card into another[1], and the chips didn't actually authorize the card with the bank fully, just the pin used, might beg to differ.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414375

[scott_s]

I read through some of the discussion, and some of the article that you linked. Based on what you said, I was expecting to read that the hack depended on taking out the card "early", but that does not seem to be the case. I thought you were saying taking out the card early lead to this particular vulnerability. Were you instead saying this vulnerability existed because of poor implementation in general, and that has no direct relationship to removing the card early?

[kbenson]

This thread[1] is the one you want. The EU allowed "offline" transactions, where the chip was used only to verify the pin. The "quick chip" method you describe may be secure, but I have very little faith that these companies can architect a lasting secure solution, the incentives just aren't aligned in our favor.

Simply put, requiring the authorization token (card, phone, etc) be present and accessible for the entire transaction is not a bug, it's a feature. I surely do not want transactions happening after I've left the store, and while you can sign a verified transaction request with everything needed to process the transaction on okay from the bank, that's an extra level of complexity on top of a system I already don't trust them to get right.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10414994